Dateline: Constantine's Rome, U.S.A. After a year of fearmongering, deception and compromise, our bought-and-paid-for political system at last knelt on the Great Toilet Bowl and squeezed out a fibrous chunk of a bill, now being sold as “the most important piece of social legislation since the 1960s”.
That from David Frum, a “fellow” at the right-wing, non-think tank, the American Enterprise Institute...who lost his job yesterday after he dared criticize the Republican Party's flailing, and ultimately failed, strategy of Fear and Surprise, Surprise and Fear.
Yes, the battle is over, and the narrative is already set. One must either embrace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 as a milestone carved from gold and set at the latest American Crossroads...or despise “Obamacare” and everyone who supported it, “baby-killers” and “assholes” that they are. This bill with either usher in a new bumper crop of healthy, wealthy and wise American citizens...or bring about the “Apocalypse” We've been marinating in Right Wing fear-juice for so long now, I'm not surprised by any of this...only saddened that, as usual, those of us who don't align our thinking along what Jon Stewart called “the Hannity-Olbermann Scale” are not allowed to sit and talk at the Big Kid Table. Can't something be “the most important piece of legislation since the 1960s” and a massive corporate welfare boondoggle? In today's Washington, these are not mutually exclusive things. It seems like giving free money away to corporations is about the only thing the two wings of our one-party state can agree on.
At least the Republicans remain honest to a fault. They have the stones to brazenly declare, loudly and proudly for all who might hear, “Yes: we are the party of eternal warfare, greed, fear mongering, and bigotry.” The Democrats try to look like they feel bad about eternal warfare, greed, fear mongering, and bigotry, even as they tacitly support all of those things in a continuing bid to Right-flank the Republicans. Because bourgey suburbanites are the only people who bother to vote any more, and they're so mean and stingy they'd rather bankrupt themselves putting their kids through private school than pay another dime in taxes that might go to help brown people.
I do not cast my tar with a wide brush. I am not Glenn Beck...though, if you believe him, I am a Cancer on the American Political scene. If only I could metastasize a few members of Congress...I'm sure Joe Liberman would get stuck in my throat...but what if I dissolved him first, in some sick, twisted, pre-digestive process...then again, why waste good vomit drop? Liberman's so desperate to be noticed these days he'd probably get a kick out of the free publicity:
“The Huffington Post received word today that Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Himself) will convene a press conference in the Senate Briefing room at three p.m. There, a strange combination of human being and house fly, a freakish, bastard child of Science Gone Horribly Awry, will dissolve the Senator's face with what the estate of esteemed Canadian physicist Seth Brundle described as, 'a corrosive enzyme.' Pundits from Faux News to the General Electric Pseudo-Liberal Primetime Lineup are already speculating that this may be Liberman's first act in a 2012 bid for the White House.”
Meanwhile, back in the real world...there actually are eighty-three out-and-proud, real-life Progressives in the Congressional Progressive Caucus—including my Representative, Earl Blumenauer. They are not the malignant, flesh-consuming disease that Glenn Beck would have you believe. They did all they could to keep their yuppy-fied “allies” in the Corprocrat Party from turning the bill into an even bigger hand out to medical supply industry. But their efforts were largely in vain. They'll be no “public option,” for anyone. No universal health care. No socialized medicine. Not even its shammiest sham of a cousin. Merely a requirement we all buy into the same, piece of shit, for-profit plutocracy that's killing us now. Hillary Clinton loved the "individual mandate" system (it's got the word "individual" in it - it must be good). Candidate Obama decried it...but the people who get money from medical insurance companies (hospitals, corporate drug dealers) loved it, and those are the people who put money into politician's coffers. It's not a Donkey vs. Elephant thing: don't think of either. The corporatocracy doesn't care. It throws its cash around wherever power resides, hedging every bet against the chance of a real socially-democratic revolution in this country.
They get what they pay for. The whole Health Scare debacle just goes to show you can have all the Committee Chairmanships you want, in both Houses of Congress, plus the White House, and every left-leaning weirdo in whole country at your back (as Obama did, this time last year) and still cave in on everything the people who put you in office held dear, thanks to venial, virulent vermin like Bart Stupid (with his need to control women's internal organs) or Joe Sleezeberman (with his vindictive temper-tantrums – hey Joe, Ned Lamont may be a playboy millionaire, but at least he's not a complete dickhead). Our esteemed Progressive members still have only the same number of votes as those two jackasses. And there are a lot more Stupak's than Blumenauer's in the Democratic Party's ranks.
As a nation, we're over-worked, drugged-up, nail-bitingly paranoid, and (more than likely) not making enough to scrape by, petrified by the possibility of our job disappearing into the wilds of India, China, or Taiwan. So it's no wonder we're reacting to all this with name calling, death threats, and random shots into the air.
At least 10 House Democrats have had to request additional security since Sunday's health-care vote. Someone left a coffin on the lawn of Rep. Russ Carnahan's home in Missouri. Glass doors and windows were broken at the district offices of Reps. Louise Slaughter of New York and Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona. Vandals have damaged Democratic Party offices in Wichita, Cincinnati and Rochester, N.Y.
And Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, whose last-minute compromise on abortion funding guaranteed final passage of the reform act, has received a flood of abusive phone calls at his office and home. Someone faxed him a drawing of a noose. One voice mail, subsequently posted on the Internet, was left by a woman who wanted Stupak to know that "there are millions of people across the country who wish you ill." Another caller was more direct: "You're dead. We know where you live. We'll get you."
Indeed. Check it out, people: it's getting dangerous out there. So stay in your homes and let Super Rockin' Mr. Magic entertain you. After all, according to that great storehouse of modern journalism, Access Hollywood, those White House party crashing yuppies we were all supposed to care about months ago are set to appear on Real Housewives of D.C.
According to The Daily Beast, they also have a tell-all book in the works, which will “set the record straight” on the rumors that have surrounded them since their uninvited adventure.
“People will be surprised when the truth about the Salahis is finally told,” literary agent Sharlene Martin told the Beast.
Meanwhile, the real housewives, house-husbands...real people, in fact, of all genders and social situations...seem poised to catch one final “fuck you” before “our” Congress goes to its Easter recess. After proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they are terminally disconnected from the tribulations of really-real Americans, none of the "leadership" in Congress seems to mind that unemployment benefits, flood insurance, and all manner of things that actually provide real, immediate help to real, immediate people...the ones they supposedly represent...are set to expire. Again.
Last week, the House approved a $9 billion measure containing one-month extensions of unemployment insurance, COBRA health benefits and federal flood insurance. Senate Democrats hoped to have their chamber approve the same bill Thursday. But Republicans refused, complaining that the bill is not offset with spending cuts elsewhere.
They said the same thing in early March, when Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) brought the chamber to a halt for five days over another extension that wasn't offset.
Senate Democrats and Republicans spent hours negotiating among themselves and with each other to find a compromise. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) discussed the possibility of a one- or two-week extension of benefits that would be fully paid for, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was opposed to the idea, according to two Senate aides.
As a result, the House and Senate will leave town without further action. COBRA and flood insurance will expire March 30, and unemployment benefits will expire April 5. The Senate will return to session April 12.
Meanwhile, AIG CEO Robert Benmosche took home a cool $7 million this year, along with $3.5 million in bennies and stock options. This is the “socialism” Glenn Beck keeps yammering about. This is a “redistribution of wealth” on a grand scale. For a year and half I've watched these bastards feed at the public trough and all I see are the rich getting richer while the rest of us get stuffed.
Six of eight [AIG] managers who had their 2009 awards set by Feinberg, the Obama administration’s special master on executive pay, had their overall packages increased this year, according to a Treasury Department report [released on the 23rd].
As “special masters” go Feinberg's sure made a mess of things. His “socialist takeover” of America's businesses looks a hell of a lot more like a giant cash-grab. Corporate welfare. Socialism for High Society. That's the real danger, lurking out there in the noise fields. And unless people wake up and realize that corporatist politicians (whatever the consonant next to their name) aren't going to ride in on their white horses and save us, we'd all better get ready. Things'll get a lot worse before they get any better.
With the Great American Health Scare “debate” tabled for Easter, our national Infotainment Complex will have to flail about until it finds the Next Big Thing to distract from how badly we're getting fucked. Sure, it's a mid-term election year, but who cares about those races anyway? Osama bin Laden just put out another mix tape, threatening to...gasp...harm Americans he's supposedly holding prisoner. (Gee, what a surprise. And here we thought you'd just sit them down for a nice, hot meal and a discussion of the Theodicy Problem, O-man.) Sister Sarah has returned to the headlines yet again, swooping down from Alaska to try and save old man McCain's ass from a loony, disingenuous, teabagging primary challenger. Election 2010 icons are already appearing across this great Web of ours. And that new Twilight movie's coming to a theater near you. God must be in his heaven, and all is truly right with the world. More wine, please? Thank you...I think I'll go for a garden stroll, my path lit by bodies of a few burning terrorists. Oh, sure, they call themselves “martyrs,” but what the hell do they know? Then we've got the orgy at three...and that bribery session at four...what's the point of Easter if I can't go home to extorting some more cash out of my past contributors?...And what the hell is that sound I hear in the distance...is that...Mel Brooks shouting something...what could it be?
“Gentlemen! We've got to protect our phony-baloney jobs!”
Well said, Mel. Well said.
No comments:
Post a Comment